Dec 11
30
A few pics from Summer 2009.
Don't tell me the Great Salt Lake isn't Beautiful
Heaven is the river and no civilization for four days.
Apr 11
10
Summer is coming!
Last summer I read Refuge, by Terry Tempest Williams, for the first time. This semester I took a Literature of the Natural World class, and those combined made me want to get out and capture the natural world with my lens. I recently bought a Nikon D3100. It’s not a super fancy camera, but I think it’s pretty good for a beginner. I’m still getting a handle on keeping track of all the settings in manual mode, but I’m making progress.
School is almost over, and I can’t wait for summer. I’ve got five trips planned for this year already: Fish Lake with some friends, the annual Sulphur campground Uintas trip with the Krauses, hopefully some slot canyons, Yellowstone with my immediate family, and Arches as part of a geography field trip.
I am hoping to get a job at the Ogden Nature Center this summer. I’ve been volunteering there on a regular basis. My position would be partly coordinating volunteers for invasive species removal (fancy phrase for pulling weeds) and partly helping run the summer camp programs. They haven’t opened the application process yet, so I’m getting a little nervous, but I’m sure it’ll work out. If it does, I can probably finish the required hours by the end of July, which would give me a couple of weeks for a mega trip. More details on that when I know that I can actually do it.
Hopefully I’ll make it out to various bird refuges a few more times this summer. It’s been too snowy to go much yet, but here’s a peek at some of the pictures that look okay to me. I don’t want my blog to get too crowded with pics, so I’ll only post my absolute favorites here. For more of my work, please see my flickr photostream here. Hopefully I’ll get a fancy icon at the top of this page for it, just like my twitter and facebook.
Messing with saturation, vibrance, etc.
More to come!
Aug 10
4
I could be completely wrong.
I think maybe
If God hates anything
He hates hate
But I don’t think he does
I think it makes him sad.
Jul 10
7
Manassas
On my trip to Virginia several weeks ago, we stopped at Manassas, site of two Civil War Battles. It was a very humbling experience which hits close to home because I had ancestors on both sides during the Civil War. Brother against brother, friend against friend. There was a unique spirit to the air here: as if the souls of those who lost their lives wish us to remember them. Anyways, here are a few shots.
Would be a beautiful place if it weren't for what took place here.
Imagine a few dozen of these staring you in the face.
Is there beauty in terror?
Inside the visitors’ center, there is a presentation that gives you an idea of what exactly happened here – where the Union and Confederate troops were, etc. Nearby is a house that served as a field hospital – on the floor you can see where soldiers carved their names into the floor.
If you’re ever in Yellowstone and have an extra day, I’d highly recommend a trip to Beartooth Pass. To get there, you take the road to the northeast entrance through Cooke City. Cooke City. From there, you drive. And drive. Among stupendous mountain vistas, you drive some more. Then you come to a little shop called Top of the World. It’s a lie – you’re gonna be a lot higher than that!
Eventually, you’ll come to an old ranger watch tower – it’s not in operation anymore, but a group of volunteers maintains the experience for touristy types:
9611 feet and a 360 degree view.
The view from here is such:
Quite a windy place.
After you’ve had your fill of that view, it’s onward and upward. The Beartooth Highway has been called, according to wikipedia, “The most beautiful drive in America” by some CBS correspondent that I have never heard of. On your way to your maximum elevation of 10974 feet, you’ll see mountain meadows full of wildflowers, snowbanks that never melt, and more alpine lakes than you can count. Here’s the view from where we finally turned around:
On top of the world.
Off to the right a little:
Snow in July!
Right below me, not visible, is a ski lift that operates for a few weeks every spring. During winter the snow covers the lift and makes it inoperable; during the spring they haul people up the highway on snowmobiles. Not exactly a beginner run. After we got our fill of mountain air, we began our trip back to camp – supplemented by a stop at a 1930′s era hotel in the biker town of Cooke City. Definitely worth the trip.